Tag Archives: move

saints… and sinners

and over there we’ll put the burning effigy

Got to the office and Kevin exploded with energy and within two hours our storage area in the basement was cleared out and everything that’s to move with us was brought upstairs…

After a few phone calls, and a good spell jamming out to innocu-rock on hold with Sprint – we arranged for our land-line to be transfered and added as a second cell phone.

Out to Radio Shack to pick up an extra cell phone – most likely the ugliest one I’ve ever seen, but it was cheep and fills the need now. (Kevin promises we can fullfill my toy-lust once we stabilize after the move, catch up on bills and the phone I really want gets released in a blue-tooth friendly version (so it will work with iSync).

Lunch at Hard Rock and picked up babybear and headed down to meet xenohomo at… ironically, the building we’re moving the studio to…. Unknown to us, while we were spinning the deal to get the corner in our friend’s loft, Neel was negotiating with the building’s owners to have this year’s Saints and Sinner’s ball on one of their vacant floors.

Mardi Gras is a big deal in St. Louis – we’re second to New Orleans.
Every year The AIDS Foundation of St. Louis has a fundraising ball which coincides with the season. This year, Neel is the chairman for the event.

He asked if we’d help him out with decorations for the ball…. Leery of the previous years of being pro-bono’d to death by the bears – but genuinely wanting to help our friend out, we agreed to pitch in and lend a hand.

We walked through the space and Neel and Kevin talked about decorations, Chad listened quietly – and I took photos and had phony-sweet exchanges and glaring contests with the building’s rep, who… coincidentally also works for an ex-client. The last conversation I had with the woman was rather nasty and heated, probably because she thought I was being unreasonable because I was refusing to do projects until they paid their invoices which had aged beyond 9 months. We finally got paid – but we haven’t worked with them since… I miss the account, but then again – I don’t miss working and not getting paid.

She was shocked to see me there… She’s new to town and is probably still learning just how “small town” and incestuous St. Louis is.
It can make you… and break you…

We parted company and I gave her a wink, and a smug grin and told here “You’ll be seeing more of me”…

I can be a phony bitch when it’s called for.

I can be a blog-denying smart ass too.

nomad

room with a view

Well… It’s official… We’re moving our studio. The talks with our friends with the loft downtown were successful and they’re going to let us set up shop in the corner of their HUGE space in exchange for design services.

Technically, for a myriad of bureaucratic reasons, we’re not really there. We’ll simply be vendors working on-site for a client… Our “official” business will be nomadic… (yes – there’s a way you can actually do that – and it requires carrying your business license in your car… The city of St. Louis is tedious when it comes to working with small businesses.

view overlooking Washington Ave.

The building is mid-restoration. Still dirty and funky… A welcome change from the dry-walled, drop-ceiling cave we work out of now. The building is primarily inhabited by photographers, artists and other designers and sits at the corner of the newly revitalized “urban-hipster” part of town. (St. Louis’ latest, mega-expensive, effort to gentrify downtown.) The area is peppered with lofts, night clubs, boutique stores and restaurants.

While anything dictated by someone else as “cool and hip” generally makes me snarl – I think the change in environment will be stimulating.

We’ll be taking over my friend, Jeanette’s old space. She gave us permission to box up her stuff which still sits frozen in time from when her and her husband moved to LA. It’s a corner with a great view but I’m afraid of heights so I’ll probably sit back from the window a ways.

I’m really nervous.
I’m really excited.
I’m really not blogging.